Primary Care Network Clinical Pharmacist

Detailed job description and main responsibilities

The post holder is a pharmacist with an MPharm degree (or equivalent) plus 1 year pre-registration(foundation year)  and 3 years’ experience of working as a registered pharmacist. Prior experience of working within a general practice environment would be ideal however we will consider candidates with significant clinical experience.

The post holder will work within their professional boundaries as part of a multi-disciplinary team in a patient-facing role.

The post holder will have completed (or be in the process of completing) the Primary Care Pharmacy Education Pathway and the IP qualification. Completion of further relevant post graduate education is desirable for example post graduate Clinical Pharmacy Diploma.

The post holder will provide support to general practice staff with respect to medicines optimisation and medication queries. They will help support a safer  repeat prescription system, deal with acute prescription requests, medicines reconciliation and safer transfer of care between care settings. 

They will contribute to audit and quality improvement including promoting and support of antimicrobial stewardship. They will reduce risk and improve medicines related care through provision of direct patient facing and remote medication review.

The following job description outline should be read alongside the Job Description:

Key priorities for this role are to:

• Provide support and guidance to pharmacy technicians, students and junior pharmacists working within the team.
• Plan own workload to ensure high priority patient specific and other activities are dealt with in a timely fashion.
• Work with colleagues in the PPHT to carry out clinical audits and implement required changes to patient care in line with the PCN Direct Enhance Service, Investment and Impact Fund Indicators and medicines safety and quality workstreams.
• Optimise benefit of prescribed medication through high levels of compliance and concordance achieved by support for the patient and carers.
• Provide professional input to practice medicines related activities including review and support for repeat prescribing systems and medicines related policies and procedures.
• Liaise with local community pharmacy colleagues to ensure accurate and effective medication management and support collaborative working.
• Provide direct care to patients with long-term conditions and other clinical areas within scope of professional practice, communicating specialist advice in accordance with care plans which have been devised in accordance with local and national guidance on best practice.
• Support the care of complex patients in their own homes or in nursing or residential accommodation as part of a multidisciplinary team.
• Provide professional leadership on matters relating to medicines optimisation and quality improvement, including antimicrobial stewardship, opioid deprescribing and polypharmacy structured medication reviews.
• Support service development through proposing and implementing changes for your clinical area which may also impact on other disciplines.
• Produce monthly reports on work completed.

Primary Duties and Areas of Responsibility

• Establish and promote safer prescribing practice
• Contribute to medicines safety work through the analysis and prioritisation of high risk drugs monitoring, medication safety indicators and other practice based clinical reviews to promote safe and effective prescribing. Support the process of implementing changes to prescribing and guidance for practitioners.
• Contribute to practice based / NHS Trust incident reporting systems with an emphasis on medicines safety and the dissemination of learning
• Provide patient facing clinics for those with questions, queries and concerns about their medicines in the practice.
• Undertake clinical structured medication reviews with patients taking high risk drugs (within scope of professional practice) and review for ongoing need and appropriate monitoring, making recommendations to senior staff/GP as appropriate. Arrange suitable follow up appointment(s) to monitor the effect of any changes implemented.
• Undertake clinical structured medication reviews in vulnerable housebound patients at risk of hospital admission and harm from poor use of medicines, review for ongoing need and appropriate monitoring, prescribing within scope of professional practice or making recommendations to senior staff/GP as appropriate. Arrange suitable follow up appointment(s) to monitor the effect of any changes implemented.
• Provide a telephone help line for patients with questions, queries and concerns about their medicines.
• Answers medicine related enquiries from GPs, other practice staff, other healthcare teams (e.g. community pharmacy) and patients with queries about medicines, suggesting and recommending solutions within scope of practice, escalating to senior colleagues where necessary. Providing follow up for patients to monitor the effect of any changes.
• Support safe and timely medicines reconciliation

Medicines Optimisation in practice

• Support Implementation of a practice repeat prescribing policy. Support the repeat prescribing reauthorisation process by reviewing patient requests for repeat prescriptions and reviewing medicines reaching review dates. Reduce medicines risk by utilising clinical system alerts and ensuring patients are booked in for necessary monitoring tests where required
• Contribute to clinical audits and improvement projects (prescribing incentive schemes) through collaboration colleagues such as GP registrars, practice managers, community services, public health  etc.
• Utilise clinical system search results and prescribing data to contribute to identification of areas for intervention. Promote evidence-based practice and interventions to improve patient outcomes.
• Support antimicrobial stewardship initiatives and promote appropriate prescribing of antimicrobials.
• To reconcile medicines following discharge from hospitals, intermediate care, step down care from care homes, including identifying and following up unexplained changes preparing recommendations for management and rectification of anomalous changes to discuss with senior pharmacist prior to implementation and with advice from GP if necessary.
• Liaise with community pharmacists and patients to communicate changes to medication and ensure safe ongoing care.

Collaborative Working Relationships

• Recognise the roles of other colleagues within the organisation and their role to patient care.
• Demonstrate ability to work as part of a team.
• Can recognise personal limitations and refer to more appropriate colleague(s) when necessary.
• Actively work towards developing and maintaining effective working relationships both within and outside the practice and locality.
• Foster and maintain strong links with all services across locality.
• Demonstrates ability to integrate general practice with community and hospital pharmacy teams.
• Liaises with colleagues on prescribing related matters to ensure consistency of patient care and to benefit from peer support.

Knowledge, Skills and Experience Required

• Has an awareness of the breadth of common long-term conditions that are likely to be seen in a general medical practice.
• Minimum of 2 years post registration experience in pharmacy, as demonstrated within a practice portfolio.
• Accountable for delivering professional expertise and direct service provision within scope of competence.
• Uses skills in a range of routine situations requiring analysis or comparison of a range of options able to analyse and interpret complex information including conflicting elements related to audit, prescribing data and care of patients with multiple conditions.
• Recognises priorities when problem-solving and identifies deviations from normal pattern and is able to refer to seniors or GPs when appropriate.
• Able to follow legal, ethical, professional and organisational policies/procedures and codes of conduct.
• Involves patients in decisions about prescribed medicines and supporting adherence as per NICE guidelines.

This job description is intended to provide an outline of the key tasks and responsibilities only. There may be other duties required of the post-holder commensurate with the position. This description will be open to regular review and may be amended to take into account service development.

 Ideally full time however part time will be considered